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Information about Corvus Corax (band)

Corvus Corax is a German band known for playing medieval music using an abundance of authentic instruments. Their name is the scientific name for the Common Raven. The band was formed in 1989 by Castus Rabensang, Win (Venustus) and Meister Selbfried ("Master Selfpeace"). The band often uses bagpipes as the solo instrument, their live performances attract attention with bizarre look of the musicians being reminiscent of ancient Greek myths: half-naked, dressed in unusual clothes, wearing different ancient-like decorations, often tattooed.

Today the band consists of eight members: Ardor vom Venushügel ("Ardor from the Venusmount"), Castus Rabensang, Patrick der Kalauer ("Patrick the groaner"), Harmann der Drescher ("Harmann the thrasher"), Hatz ("hunt"), Jordon Finus, Teufel and Wim (Venustus). In May 2005 Meister Selbfried, one of the Corvus Corax founders and the researcher of medieval music, decided to cease his active musicianship and to dedicate himself mostly to managing the Corvus Corax' own label Pica Records [1]. His place in the line-up has been taken by Jordon Finus in 2006.

The band releases its music through Pica Records in Europe and Noir Records in the USA. The Cantus Buranus projects have thus far been released in Europe by Roadrunner Europe.

Interpretation and theory

Because medieval music theory was dominated by ecclesiastics, it is often difficult to determine from the extant manuscripts exactly how the secular (popular) music of the day sounded. Corvus Corax draws on a number of sources to try to make their music as authentic as possible: they have used documents "in which clerics condemn profane music, hold forth about the dancers’ dissoluteness, vilify the minstrels’ music and bar their instruments" as an indicator as to what the music might have sounded like, and drawn on nineteenth century scholarly treatises for information (although in many cases these treatises are unreliable, as they impart more nineteenth century interpretations of medieval music than factual information on what the music was like).

But a number of things are known for certain. For example, the profane music of the day was often accompanied by a droning bass tone similar to that generated by the bourdon stop on an organ, which is provided in Corvus Corax's case by the drones on their bagpipes. An inkling as to the harmonies used is found in a song by Walter von der Vogelweide, in which he calls for the song to be played "the old way", meaning harmonising with thirds. At the time, the third was considered an awkward, ugly interval by the sacred musician — like the tritone, or diabolus in musica — but it was a common interval in folk music.

Matters are further complicated by the fact that each minstrel would add his personal interpretation to a piece, and that recorded (i.e. written) versions may differ depending on who did the transcribing, and where. It is on this that Corvus Corax's interpretation hinges: medieval popular music was played more from the heart than the brain, and despite making use of scholarship to give them a grounding, Corvus Corax attempts to maintain the spirited, free manner in which the minstrels themselves would have played the music.[1]

Projects

In 1996 the band released the album Tanzwut which combined the elements of metal music with their brand sound of bagpipes. The CD turned out to be a commercially successful experiment and the band decided to continue the tradition of that album in a separate musical project called Tanzwut, which included Castus Rabensang (German Rabensang = ravensong), Wim, and Teufel (German Teufel = Devil) from Corvus Corax as well as three new members.

In 2005 Corvus Corax started the ambitious project "Cantus Buranus": a full-length opera set to the original Carmina Burana manuscript lyrics. The music for the opera was fully composed by the band and had no connection with the famous work by Carl Orff. It was performed with symphonic orchestra, choir and medieval ensemble, combining traditional symphonism with medieval minstrel-like melodies. The project included a CD recording, a DVD, as well as live performances. A live CD and DVD recording of Cantus Buranus was released in March 2006.

2005 also marked the band's debut concerts in the USA. The band performed four sets on each of four different days in mid-October, not far from Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. There was also a "secret show" held for employees of the Faire. Footage shot by the band members and crew was assembled into a featurette that was included as a bonus track on the US edition of the band's live DVD, "Gaudia Vite."

Discography

  • Tempi Antiquii (1988-1992)
  • Ante Casu Peccati (1989)
  • Congregatio (1991)
  • Inter Deum Et Diabolum Semper Musica Est (1993)
  • Tritonus (1995)
  • Tanzwut (1996)
  • Live (1998)
  • Viator (1998)
  • MM (2000)
  • Mille Anni Passi Sunt (2000)
  • Corvus Corax erzählen Märchen aus alter Zeit (2000)
  • In Electronica Remixe (2000)
  • Seikilos (2002)
  • Gaudia Vite (live) (2003)
  • Best of Corvus Corax (2005)
  • Cantus Buranus (2005)
  • Gaudia Vite Live DVD - USA Edition (2006)
  • Cantus Buranus Live in Berlin (2006)
  • Venus Vina Musica (2006)
  • Kaltenberg anno MMVII (2007)

See also

External links

1. ^ Meister Selbfried (1998) "Background to the Band", obtained from Corvus Corax website
The term medieval music encompasses European music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire (476 AD) and ends in approximately the middle of the fifteenth century.
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C. corax

Binomial name
Corvus corax
Linnaeus, 1758

Common Raven range


Subspecies
  • C. c. corax
  • C. c. varius
  • C. c.

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Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The term is equally correct in the singular or plural, although pipers most commonly talk of "pipes" and "the bagpipe.
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Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices.
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A tattoo, or dermal pigmentation, is a mark made by inserting pigment into the skin for decorative or other reasons. Tattoos on humans are a type of decorative body modification, while tattoos on animals are most commonly used for identification or branding.
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For other uses, see Bourdon.
The name Bourdon is derived from the French word for 'buzz' and normally denotes a stopped flute/flue type of pipe in an organ, though in organ building the stop has no "buzz", but rather a very dark, heavy tone, strong in
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Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170 - c. 1230) is the most celebrated of the Middle High German lyric poets.

Life history

For all his fame, Walther's name is not found in contemporary records, with the exception of a solitary mention in the travelling accounts of Bishop
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mediant is the third degree of the diatonic scale, being the "middle" note of the tonic triad. For example, in the C major scale (white keys on a piano, starting on C), the mediant is the note E; and the mediant chord uses the notes E, G, and B.
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tritone
Inverse tritone
Name
Other names augmented fourth, diminished fifth
Abbreviation TT
Size
Semitones 6
Interval class 6
Just interval 7:5, 10:7, 45:32...
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Folk music can have a number of different meanings, including:
  • Traditional music: The original meaning of the term "folk music" was synonymous with the term "Traditional music", also often including World Music and Roots music; the term "Traditional music" was given

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minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories about distant places or about (real or imaginary) historical events. Though minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others.
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Tanzwut
(1999) Labyrinth der Sinne
(2000)

Tanzwut is the debut full-length eponymous studio album by the German industrial rock/medieval rock band, Tanzwut. It was released on March 1, 1999 by EMI Music.
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Heavy metal (sometimes referred to simply as metal) is a genre of rock music[1] that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[2] With roots in blues-rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, heavy,
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Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The term is equally correct in the singular or plural, although pipers most commonly talk of "pipes" and "the bagpipe.
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Tanzwut is a German NDH-metal and medieval rock band comprised of members from the folk band Corvus Corax. Their name is the German term for "dancing mania", but is directly translated with "dance rage".
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Cantus Buranus is an opera by the German medieval band Corvus Corax that employs the medieval text Carmina Burana. Cantus Buranus is a stage opera of eleven poems from Carmina Burana
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Carmina Burana (IPA: ['karmɪna bu'raːna]) also known as the Burana Codex is a manuscript collection, now in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, of more than 1000 poems and songs written in the
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Carl Orff (July 10 1895(1895--) – March 29 1982) was a 20th-century German composer, most famous for Carmina Burana (1937). He was also successful and influential in the field of music education.
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minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories about distant places or about (real or imaginary) historical events. Though minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others.
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Compact Disc

The closely spaced tracks on the readable surface of a Compact Disc cause light to diffract into a full visible colour spectrum
Media type: Optical disc
Encoding: Various
Capacity: Typically up to 700 MB
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DVD

Media type: Optical disc
Capacity: 4.7 GB (single layer), 8.5 GB (dual layer)
Usage: Data storage, audio, video, games

Optical disc authoring
  • Optical disc
  • Optical disc image
  • Recorder hardware
  • Authoring software

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Flag
Seal
Nickname: "City of Brotherly Love", "The City that Loves you Back", "Cradle of Liberty", "The Quaker City", "The Birthplace of America", "Philly".
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